Ecommerce Shipping: Best Practices & Solutions

Ecommerce shipping is a key part of your business and your consumer’s experience with you. You’ve put in hours of hard work to ensure the customer’s online experience with you is excellent, all the way to securing their purchase and now they’re eagerly awaiting their order to arrive.

Ensuring a great shipping and delivery experience is the next step in the consumer’s journey with you - they expect their order to arrive in the advertised timescale, in perfect condition and be the items they wanted.

In the 2022 Last Mile Delivery Report by Anyline, it was concluded that 74.4% of the people surveyed said that an unacceptable delivery experience would strongly or somewhat affect their decision to order from that company again.

To minimise the possibility of a poor delivery experience for your consumers, this guide will explore ecommerce shipping strategies, choosing the right shipping rates, 10 ecommerce shipping best practices, selecting shipping couriers and ecommerce shipping solutions. 

• An overview of ecommerce shipping

• Common ecommerce shipping strategies and models

• Selecting the right ecommerce shipping rate

• 10 ecommerce shipping best practices for your business to follow

• How to pick the right ecommerce shipping courier

• The best ecommerce shipping solutions your business needs

• Ecommerce shipping is made simple and hassle-free with Mintsoft

• Ecommerce Shipping FAQs

Ecommerce shipping is the process of transporting the goods a consumer has purchased online, to their delivery address. 

The ecommerce shipping process

The ecommerce shipping process includes all of the order fulfillment activities required from the moment an order is placed online, to its despatch; such as: 

• Order receiving

• Order verification

• Stock allocation

• Picking and packing

• Courier selection

• Shipping

The ecommerce market is ever-growing - there are new sales channels being created, new brands emerging and an increasing number of consumers shopping online - ecommerce shipping is a crucial part of the customer experience and having a great experience is a large contributor to customer loyalty and repeat purchases.

It’s common practice for ecommerce brands to offer more than one shipping model, to allow consumers to select the speed of delivery that matches their urgency and budget.

1. Overnight Shipping

Overnight shipping, or next-day delivery ensures consumers receive their orders on the next business day. As Amazon Prime has set the standard for quick delivery - typically next day - consumers are increasingly expecting this delivery service from other brands. 

Popular UK shipping partners such as DPD, DHL and Evri all offer this delivery speed and does rely on your speed to despatch being extremely quick. Many will only offer this service before a cut-off time each day.

2. Same-day Delivery

Same-day delivery gets orders to your consumers within the same business day. This requires well-planned and coordinated resources and courier services to provide this shipping option successfully - such as strategically located local warehouses that can rapidly fulfill and despatch orders.

3. Two-day Shipping

Two-day shipping, or 48 hour shipping is the shipping option that the majority of ecommerce customers expect; taking only 2 days for their goods to arrive at their destination.

Popular UK shipping partners such as Royal Mail and FedEx offer this service; however it does rely on quick fulfilment to ensure orders are despatched on time.

4. International Shipping

International shipping enables brands to expand into overseas territories and a broader customer base. Before embarking on international shipping, businesses should consider the regulations, restrictions, customs procedures and taxes. Additionally, to sell your products internationally, your sales channels should also accept international payment methods and foreign currency.

5. Expedited Shipping

Expedited shipping is the offering of faster delivery than the standard option - for example, if your standard shipping is 3-5 business days, expedited shipping is any option that will get the order delivered sooner, such as next day or two-day delivery. This is typically offered at an additional cost and consumers typically expect orders via expedited shipping to be delivered within 1-3 business days.

It’s common practice for ecommerce brands to offer multiple shipping rate options so consumers can select the most appropriate depending on their budget and urgency for delivery. These typically include:

1. Free Shipping

Free shipping is a great way to reduce customers abandoning orders at the checkout stage. Of course shipping is never free and how you pass the cost onto the customer in other ways is an individual choice your brand has to make. Free shipping could also be offered based on minimum order value, so costs can be offset by the higher average order value.

2. Flat Rate Shipping

Flat rate shipping is charging the same shipping cost across all orders and should be the average cost of shipping and handling. Flat rate shipping can also be applied to certain order categories that meet criteria such as weight, order value or another classification such as ‘large item’. Using flat rate shipping will likely result in shipping costs sometimes being over and undercharged.

3. Real-time Carrier Rates

Some e-commerce platforms will enable online stores to display real-time carrier rates from the courier at checkout, so the customer pays the exact amount it will cost a business to ship the order, based on their location and delivery speed preferences.

4. Local Delivery Rates

Set up a geographical area local to you, to be able to offer reliable next day delivery at a free or low-cost option to encourage local customers. Customers within the geographical area you define will have a ‘local delivery’ as a shipping option at checkout.

Local pick-up

Depending on your items and premises, offering local pick-up as a delivery method could be an additional low-cost option. Local pick-up gives local customers the option to collect orders from you quickly and directly, with no shipping cost to you or your customer.

No matter which shipping rates or shipping models you choose, there are some best practices all ecommerce businesses should follow, to ensure your ecommerce shipping gives your consumers choice and control and a great experience when shopping with you.

1. Text and email updates

Keep your customers up to date with the progress of their order, by providing email and text updates when orders have been dispatched and ideally shipping progress such as an ‘out for delivery’ notification. 

2. Using Shipping Management Software

Use shipping management software to make your shipping processes simple - raise shipments from orders to ensure you never miss one, and automate label printing to save time.

3. Provide accurate delivery estimates

Whether you’re shipping domestically or internationally, provide consumers accurate delivery estimates to ensure they’re expectations are set on how quickly you can get their order to their door.

4. Offer multiple delivery timeframes and costs

By offering multiple delivery options, with different timeframes and associated cost, you’re giving your consumers control of how urgently they’d like to receive their order and how much they’d like to spend on delivery, to match their budget. 

5. Packaging and marketing

Your packaging is an opportunity to build brand awareness and enhance the customer’s experience. Consider including your branding on your packaging, as well as the unboxing experience - for example, you could use branded wrapping around the items or add a personal note to say thank you to your customer.

6. Packaging options

The packaging type you use should be selected based on suitability for your goods, as well as your budget. Additionally, your packaging should provide a snug fit for the size of the goods being sent - this is to help minimise your shipping costs. Many carriers charge based on the dimensional weight of a package, which is calculated using the length, width, height, and overall weight.

7. Insurance 

Depending on your product types and their value, having shipping insurance can offer additional security. While it is an additional shipping cost, it can ensure you’re covered if items are lost, damaged or stolen during transit.

8. Order tracking

Consumers are keen to receive regular updates on their shipment’s progress; therefore providing tracking information for their shipment gives additional transparency and the ability to track their own delivery. This is common practice amongst ecommerce retailers.

9. Consider free shipping for minimum value orders

Depending on the type of goods you sell, you may consider offering free shipping for orders over a minimum amount; for example, orders over £20 in value can receive free shipping. This technique encourages larger order values to access the free shipping.

10. Returns process

Returning items can be a hassle for consumers. To make the process simpler for your consumers you could; create a returns portal so return shipments can be raised easily, include returns labels for your chosen shipping partner and make packaging suitable for sending returns in.

Choosing the right ecommerce shipping carrier is going to depend on your own business circumstances, such as:

• Your budget

• Your chosen shipping strategies/methods

• Your product types

• Your regionality i.e. are you shipping domestically or internationally

It may be that you can identify a shipping partner that caters for all of your needs, or that you may require a multi-carrier strategy to meet all of your requirements. 

A multi-carrier strategy is recommended, to ensure you have contingencies in place, if an unforeseen circumstance affects a carrier’s ability to ship your goods.

Raising shipments for 100s or even 1000s of orders can become a laborious and time-consuming manual task that is prone to errors from data re-keying.

Technology such as an order management software (OMS) or a shipping management software can help automate the task of raising shipments by offering courier integrations. These can speed up raising shipments as order details are systematically transferred to the carrier. Additionally, an OMS can also keep a record of tracking information from the carrier, and also help you to process returned items back into your warehouse.

Your ecommerce shipping will depend entirely on your business model, product type and individual requirements for delivery. 

To ensure you ecommerce deliveries are made on time and in full, you’ll likely need the help of technology and software. Mintsoft’s integrated and easy-to-use ecommerce management software can streamline your order fulfilment and shipping processes to guarantee quick dispatch and minimise errors along the way. 

Offering over 150 integrations to your online marketplaces, shopping carts and carriers, your inventory levels will sync across your sales channels and you can automatically raise shipments and print delivery labels for every order.

How to calculate shipping costs for ecommerce?

Carriers charge based on the dimensional weight of a package. The calculation for this uses the length, width, height, and overall weight of the package.

Can Mintsoft help with ecommerce shipping?

Yes, Mintsoft can help make ecommerce shipping more efficient by integrating with couriers, automatically raising shipments with the appropriate courier and generating shipping documentation and labels.

What ecommerce shipping couriers are available in the UK?

Common ecommerce shipping couriers in the UK include Royal Mail, DPD, EVRi, Yodel, Amazon Shipping, FedEx and Parcelforce. All of these popular carriers are supported by Mintsoft and are offered within our courier integrations.